What Happens to Goodbye(38)

I nodded, then slid my hands into my pockets. “Good night, Riley.”
“Good night,” she replied. “And Mclean?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks.”
I wasn’t sure what the gratitude was for: coming to check on her, what I’d said, or maybe, actually, what I didn’t say. I chose not to ask. Instead, I just walked back to my driveway, letting her leave on her own terms, in her own time, without an audience. When you can’t save yourself or your heart, it helps to be able to save face.
Six
The day of the Defriese game, my dad and I were supposed to have breakfast together, just the two of us. It had been so crazy between school and the restaurant for the last week that we’d hardly seen each other, communicating mostly through hurried conversations, as one of us was coming or going, and scribbled notes on the kitchen table. This was normal, especially for the first month or so we were in a new place. A restaurant was like a demanding girlfriend, requiring every bit of his attention, and I’d gotten used to riding out his absences until things settled down. Still, I was looking forward to some face time. So when my phone beeped an hour before we were supposed to meet, my heart sank.
AHBL, his message said. SO SORRY.
AHBL was a family code that stood for All Hell Breaking Loose. It was what my dad had often told my mom over the phone when he called from their restaurant, Mariposa, to say he wouldn’t make dinner, or the movie he was supposed to meet us at in ten minutes, or any number of my school conferences or recitals. Basically, his standard reason for not being with us for, well, anything. My dad believed that panic was contagious, especially in a restaurant setting. All it took was one person losing it—over being in the weeds, totally backed up on orders, burning an entrée already late, or a wait list that would have to be seated way past closing—to set everyone else off in a domino effect. Because of this, calling my mom to say the sky was falling, even when it was, was not an option. Enter these simple four letters, AHBL, to convey the urgency without the hysteria.
As a shorthand, it had long ago made the jump from the restaurant setting to everyday use. It was what I thought the night I walked into our old kitchen and found both my parents home during the restaurant rush, sitting and waiting for me, their expressions grim. What I doodled on a yellow legal pad in any number of lawyer’s conference rooms as the tugof-war over my custody raged on around me. And what I always thought in that too-long pause between when I shared something with my mother I knew she wouldn’t like and the moment she freaked out about it.

Even though it had been three days since my HiThere! chat with Peter, I still hadn’t told my dad about seeing my mom that weekend. It was just too weird and awkward on so many levels that I decided to push it out of my mind until I absolutely had no choice but to deal with it. Which was not easy, as all around me the town was gearing up for the game. I’d forgotten what it was like to live in a basketball-crazed place. Just about everyone I saw had on a U sweatshirt or T-shirt, the local stations were covering every detail of the lead-up to tip-off like it was a national news event, and light blue U flags flew from porches and whizzed past on car antennas. The only place the game wasn’t discussed was at our house, where my dad and I had avoided the subject like a live land mine. Until now, when my phone beeped again.
LATE LUNCH? my dad had written. NOT HERE, PROMISE.
I bit my lip, my fingers poised to respond. What I had to say, though, seemed entirely too delicate to convey via keypad. So after a shower and some breakfast, I walked up to Luna Blu to tell him in person.
I’d just spped off the curb to cross the street when I heard a door shut. When I glanced back, there was Dave Wade, in jeans and a flannel shirt, sliding his keys into his pocket as he started down the street just a few feet behind me. I thought of what Riley had said, that he might like me, and suddenly felt self-conscious. Today was complicated enough, and it was not even noon yet. I nodded at him and kept walking.
When I crossed the street, though, he did the same. And when I turned down the Luna Blu alley, he did that, too. I slowed my pace as I got closer to the kitchen entrance, waiting for him to pass me and continue on to the street. He didn’t. In fact, within moments he was right behind me, having slowed down as well.
Finally, I turned around. “Are you following me?”
He raised his eyebrows. “What?”
“You just walked, like, two feet behind me the entire way here.”
“Yes,” he agreed, “but I’m not following you.”
I just looked at him. “What would you call it, then?”
“Coincidence,” he proclaimed. “We’re just headed in the same direction.”
“Where are you going?”
“Here,” he said, pointing at the kitchen door.
“No, you’re not.”
“I’m not?”
Suddenly, the door swung open, and there was Opal, wearing jeans, shiny black shoes, and a white sweater, a coffee cup in one hand. “Please tell me,” she said to Dave, skipping any greeting, “that you are here for the community project.”
“Yep,” he replied. Then he shot me a look that could only be described as smug. “I am.”
“Oh, thank God.” Opal pushed the door open farther and he stepped through. Then she said to me, “You saw all the people here the other day. I had tons! And now, today, when the local paper and freaking Lindsay Baker are coming in twenty minutes, no one. Not a single person!”
She was still holding the door, so I stepped inside behind Dave, who was standing there awaiting instruction. Opal let the door bang shut, then hurried around him and started down the hallway to the restaurant, still talking.